18/01/18

Apple’s Big Plans: A $350 Billion Contribution to the American Economy

(New York Times) -- The iPhone maker said it plans to make a $350 billion contribution to the American economy over the next five years. Some of its new investments will come from bringing back the vast majority of the $252 billion in cash that it has long held abroad.

Under the new tax law, foreign earnings sitting offshore would be considered to be automatically repatriated and taxed at reduced rates.

The tech giant said it will pay $38 billion in taxes to repatriate its overseas cash because of the new law.

Here’s what Apple plans to do:

• Invest about $30 billion in capital expenditures in the United States over the next five years.

• Create more than 20,000 new jobs in the United States, a 24 percent increase from the roughly 84,000 employees in the country currently.

• Issue stock-based bonuses worth $2,500 to employees, according to Bloomberg.

Could antitrust law fell the tech giants?

That’s the provocative question posed by Greg Ip of the WSJ. And it reflects governments’ growing wariness toward the tech industry.

Google, Amazon and Facebook aren’t like the Standard Oil or AT&T of old, gouging consumers on price. (Indeed, many of their services are free.) But if the question is “Are consumers better off?” then could there be an opening for regulatory action?

 “If market dominance means fewer competitors and less innovation, consumers will be worse off than if those companies had been restrained. “The impact on innovation can be the most important competitive effect” in an antitrust case, says Fiona Scott Morton, a Yale University economist who served in the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division under Barack Obama, ” says Ip.

Where tech has support: In its efforts to keep net neutrality regulations, with a lawsuit against the F.C.C. by 22 state attorneys general and a bill by Senate Democrats to undo the repeal using the Congressional Review Act.